April 1: Anchored in the Florida Everglades

The weather was right so off we went yesterday morning - along with three other boats!

Lots of room at the inn for at least a little while.

The idea was to travel up the coast of the Florida Everglades National Park - stopping at one or two anchorages as we made our way to the populated area of the west coast of Florida.

Marco Island is the nearest large city. Be there before the weekend.

The day on the Florida Bay was almost perfect - for most of the way at least. West winds started in the late afternoon but not bad.

Our destination was the New Turkey Key - one of the islands in the park that has a campground reachable only by boat.

Steve of course was trolling the entire time and with a nice joint effort - a cero mackerel for dinner! He puts the poles out, I listen for the line to go out and tell him he has a fish on and then he reels it in - perfect :-)

The anchorage at New Turkey Key was just off of one of the islands that has campgrounds in the park. Jenna Star was anchored just south of us. Very pleasant night with very large mosquitoes. It's been a while and we forgot to close up before dusk - won't do that again!

There were actually some folks camping. They had arrived by boat before we arrived. Guess everyone is looking to get away for it all!

Nice sunset - and we called it a day. It was a bit over 9 hours to get here as we traveled most of the day against the current.

Off this morning about 9 or so. We had to wait until the tide came in a bit before heading out. There is something about a depth meter reading 3 1/2 feet that makes me nervous!

Beautiful day to move on, smooth water, sunny and light breeze. Steve was again fishing as we moved (and ended up with another cero mackerel for dinner).

In the meantime, he worked on polishing the stainless steel - just can't keep the rust off in this salt air.

Tool of choice? An electric toothbrush! Works fairly well on the screw heads and other small places around the stanchions.

Tonight we're back in the land of electronics and cell signals - anchored about 30 miles from Marco Island and civilization. Great spot in the mangroves - some shallow areas coming in so we'll wait a bit until we leave.

Not sure where we are headed. The goal at this point is to now avoid having to move on the weekends once we reach the more populated areas of this coast. Maybe anchor one more night then into a marina in Marco. We hear there is a good breakfast place in town ......